The Advanced Role-playing Creation Guide
Where to begin, in creating a role-play Okay, so you want to create a role-play. First, you should know that creating a serious role-play consumes a lot of time and takes a lot of work. Reflect on things like family, school, friends, time, and figure out where the role-play will come in. Thats right, the first step is working the role-play around your life, believe it or not. It is suggested that the role-play be given a lower prioty then real life, to be blunt. An easy solution is to simply work on the role-play, thinking about it, for just a little while each day, then go crazy for a day or two on weekends. This guide is 10 steps long, with examples and helpful tips. Remember that you don't need to follow this guide word for word, being creative is a must for creating role-plays. Step 1 *Start by deciding whether your role-playing world will share history with the real one. If it does share history, decide where it will diverge and why. Step 2 *Map out your world. Geography doesn't seem important at first, but it tends to shape long periods of history. It will define your world's boundaries and shape the psychologies of its people. Which cities are seafaring? Which cities are landlocked? Which people were the first to receive foreigners? Whip out a peice of paper and jot down some little scribbles. It helps a LOT if the role-play takes place in a gaming enviroment, which negates the need of this step. Step 3 *Create a naming style for you world. Will everyone have names like Ulfgar and Heimdall? Or will they be named Smith and Thatcher? In role-plays, somtimes people will disregard you naming specifications, so perhaps focus more on the names of cities, spells, weapons, and lakes, rivers, etc. Step 4 *Create a backround of your world with all of the important historical characters and events. Who were the big players when your world was created? A farmer who was martyred? An alien race that died out? What happened to the Gods of the world? Step 5 *Decide who the characters that enter the world as players will be. Are they natives or travelers to a distant land? Decide who the characters they meet are, and how those characters' actions are shaped by their history and culture. This is basically creating the role-playing direction, without this step the role-play will seem to be expressionless and rather shallow. Step 6 *Decide on what the factions will be in your world. Decide why each faction exists, what they believe in, and who the members are. Create rules for the factions. Step 7 *Create a flow of events. Decide what big events will intervene in your world and when. When will the meteor strike Earth? At what time will Mt. Righteous finally unleash it fatal power? These events are great distractions. The tragic affairs in a war should be broken every once in awhile by an unexpected event, less the role-play become predicatable. Step 8 *Provide distinguishing features in your world at the various locations. For instance, an abandoned tower in one area and a bustling fish market in another. Step 9 *Watch out for "that one town" phenomena where players are unable to remember the differences between one place and another. Step 10 *Above all, applicability. Applicability is the concept that, though your world is not necessarily allegorical, it has enough depth to mean different things to different people. In other words, everyone finds something that is important to them. Being able to relate to the story of your role-play will make it meaningful to the people in it. Tips *Imply that more is going on under the surface in your world than meets the eye. This will keep people interested. Creating a Believable World